Friday, July 27, 2007

The website for well-known international law jurist Anthony D'Amato of Northwestern greets readers with the following:

The Moment of Truth for a practicing lawyer occurs whenever a prospective client tells a story that seems morally compelling but legally hopeless. That is where the attorney's legal research should begin, not where it should end. Too much injustice persists in the world because tired legal thinking has accepted unjust patterns as legally inevitable.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

I'm in the process of changing this Blog over so that all of us may use it. I changed the name for writing original posts to "Legal Storyteller." If you want the password so that you may make original posts, please email me

I feel fairly safe in speaking for my co-organizers in thanking everyone for your great papers and participation at the conference. We had almost 90 people from 13 different countries. We all set a new world record for Applied Legal Storytelling conferences. I hope you all feel comfortable posting, which includes adding links to your papers, probably on SSRN. I understand that you end up creating a blog when you create an account, but there's no need ever to use the blog if you don't want it. My sense is that cyberspace is littered with blogspot.com blogs (including a few of my own).You can add images by clicking on the icon that looks like a polaroid shot up in the toolbar when you post. Any conference photos (well, almost any) will be welcome!- Brian

Saturday, July 14, 2007

The Legal Writing Institute Journal invites you to submit papers for publication that address “applied storytelling.”Applied Storytelling recognizes the value and use of stories and narrative in advocacy (e.g., legal argument, litigation, judicial opinions, legislation, the attorney-client relationship, ethical limits, and possible differences among different legal systems), law teaching (e.g., using stories to teach, and teaching to tell stories), and legal scholarship (e.g., using stories in scholarship, and scholarship examining use of stories).We seek articles that contribute to -- and even help define -- this new and growing field.

This Call for Papers complements the Once Upon a Legal Time: Developing the Skills of Storytelling in Law Conference, to be held July 18-20 2007 at CityUniversity, London, England.Articles submitted do not have to have been presented at the conference, and articles may expand upon the breadth and depth of the conference. For more information about the conference, please visit

There is no limit on length; however, the Journal is especially interested in receiving shorter articles of approximately 10,000 words or less (total includes text and footnotes) provided they reflect innovative and novel contributions to the body of scholarly work on applied storytelling practice and theory. We perceive several advantages to publishing several shorter works rather than a few longer ones:more ideas will be disseminated more quickly, which will help this field grow; there is a greater chance that shorter articles will be read and their ideas applied; and the shorter format will allow authors to articulate and publish their ideas more quickly.Nevertheless, we are also interested in publishing longer work provided that it otherwise meets the criteria.

We are interested in publishing original works of scholarship and will not consider submissions published elsewhere unless they are out of print or otherwise inaccessible.We understand that some articles about applied storytelling might have been published initially in a time when this idea was not widely recognized, and that such discourse may have fallen through doctrinal cracks.

The Journal publishes articles using ALWD citation form and would prefer to receive articles in that format, but this format is not required, and your decision not to follow it will not adversely affect the board’s publication decisions. For further information on the Journal, including submission requirements, please go to http://www.law2.byu.edu/Law_Library/jlwi/

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Welcome to the first ever Applied Legal Storytelling conference! This ConfBlog is for all participants to write on. Use it to comment on presentations, share thoughts, ask open questions, set up meetings, find people, give good restaurant or pub info, whatever. You will be given the password, etc. at the conference. Then, blog away!

We will also use it to post changes in schedule or other important information.